1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a sunroof motor used for driving a roof lid of a sunroof apparatus mounted on automotive vehicles, and more particularly to a sunroof motor provided with a roof-lid detector for detecting the roof lid to arrive at predetermined positions such as a full-opened position, a full-closed position and a lift-up position, for example, and shutting off the electric power.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, there has been used a sunroof motor shown in FIG. 5, for example. A sunroof motor 51 shown in the figure is composed of a motor part 52 and an output part 53, the output part 53 is provided with a gear case 54 housed with a worm wheel.
The gear case 54 is formed in one body united with an end bracket 56 to cover a motor casing 55 of the motor part 52, and the worm wheel is meshed with a worm formed on an end of a motor shaft passing through the end bracket 56.
An end of an output shaft 57 fixed with the worm wheel extrudes outwardly passing through the gear case 54, and is fitted with a cam wheel 59 having a projection 59a and a pinion 58 successively. The pinion 58 is wound with a wire connected to a roof lid and stretched between the pinion 58 and the roof lid, and the roof lid is so structured as to be driven in the opening or closing direction by transmitting power through the wire. And the gear case 54 is disposed with a gear shaft pin 60a, and the gear shaft pin 60a is fitted with a gear 60 turned according to the rotation of the output shaft 57. The gear 60 is provided with a plurality of teeth 60b meshed with the projection 59a of the cam wheel 59 at the outer periphery thereof, and the gear 60 is so designed as to turn as much as one tooth at every rotation of the cam wheel 59.
Three microswitches 61, 62 and 63 are disposed in the outer periphery of the gear 60 (the microswitch 63 is sited behind the microswitch 61 and invisible in FIG. 5), and the gear 60 is formed with cam claws 60A, 60B and 60C for pushing switch knobs 61a, 62a and 63a of the microswitches 61, 62 and 63, respectively. The microswitches 61, 62 and 63 are arranged so as to detect the position of the roof lid by pushing the respective switch knobs 61a, 62a and 63a of the microswitches 61, 62 and 63 with corresponding cam claws 60A, 60B and 60C of the gear 60 when the roof lid arrives in the predetermined positions, that is, the full-opened position, the full-closed position and the tilt-up position.
Additionally, the sunroof motor 51 is provided with a relay 64 through a wire harness 65 for supplying or shutting off the electric power to the motor part 52 thereof in response to the operation of a sunroof switch and the working of the microswitches 61, 62 and 63.
In the sunroof motor 51, when the roof lid is moved to the full-opened position from the full-closed position by operating the sunroof switch, the cam wheel 59 rotates by the rotation of the output shaft 57, and the gear 60 turns according to the rotation of the cam wheel 59.
When the roof lid arrives at the full-opened position, the cam claw 60A of the gear 60 pushes the switch knob 61a of the microswitch 61 corresponding to the full-opened position, whereby the roof lid is detected to arrive at the full-opened position and the output shaft 57 stops to rotate. Namely, the roof lid stops at the full-opened position.
However, in the aforementioned conventional sunroof motor 51, the microswitches 61, 62 and 63 may clatter at the time of detecting the roof lid to arrive in the respective positions by pressing or releasing the switch knobs 61a, 62a and 63a of the respective microswitches with the cam claws 60A, 60B and 60C of the gear 60. And there is a problem since there is the possibility that the clatter noise is offensive to the passenger's ear.
Furthermore, in the sunroof motor 51, it is complicated to determine the positions of the microswitches 61, 62 and 63 so as to work with high accuracy at the time of mounting them on the sunroof motor 51, additionally, the relay 51 is connected with the sunroof motor 51 through the wire harness 65. Accordingly, there is another problem in that the assembling work requires too many man-hours.